The Note's Must-Reads for Wednesday, May 16, 2012

The Note's Must-Reads are a round-up of today's political headlines and stories from ABC News and the top U.S. newspapers. Posted Monday through Friday right here at www.abcnews.com

Compiled by ABC News' Carrie Halperin, and Ben Waldron

VP WATCH

ABC News' Chris Moody: " Chris Christie jokes: 'I don't want any more questions about being vice president '" In a mysterious and lighthearted video posted Tuesday on his official YouTube channel, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie jokes that he's finished with town hall meetings, in part, because he's sick of the vice presidential questions. The tongue-in-cheek video opens with two of his aides discussing the governor's outreach strategy, and they agree to put Christie through more rounds of town hall meetings with constituents. LINK

PRESIDENT OBAMA

USA Today's Richard Wolf: " 'Obama worth as much as $10 million'" Three things are apparent from President Obama's annual financial disclosure statement, released today: He is a wealthy man, with assets of as much as $10 million. He has a hefty stake in JPMorgan Chase, the megabank that just made a bad $2 billion bet. Obama has an account worth between $500,000 and $1 million. LINK

The NY Daily News' Aliyah Shahid: " Jay-Z weighs in on President Obama's decision to support gay marriage: 'It's the right thing to do': Rapper Jay-Z is singing President Obama's praises for endorsing same-sex marriage, insisting "it's the right thing to do.""I've always thought it as something that was still holding the country back," Jay-Z told CNN on Monday, commenting on gay couples not being able to tie the knot. "What people do in their own homes is their business and you can choose to love whoever you love," he said. "That's their business. It's no different than discriminating against blacks. It's discrimination plain and simple." LINK

Politico's Donovan Slack: " RNC tweaks Obama for additions to bio pages of past presidents" The White House is billing them as informational asides - "Hey, did you know?" factoids - tagged on the end of official biographies of past presidents on the White House web site. The one at the end of President Ronald Reagan's bio says: "In a June 28, 1985 speech Reagan called for a fairer tax code, one where a multi-millionaire did not have a lower tax rate than his secretary. Today, President Obama is calling for the same with the Buffett Rule." LINK

MITT ROMNEY

The Los Angeles Times' Maeve Reston and Seema Mehta: " In Iowa, Mitt Romney focuses on 'prairie fire of debt'" Returning to the state that launched Barack Obama to the presidency, Mitt Romney on Tuesday accused his rival of carelessly driving the country into "a financial crisis of both debt and spending that threaten what it means to be an American. LINK

The Wall Street Journal's Sara Murray: " Romney Warns of 'Debt and Spending Inferno'" Mitt Romney likened the federal government's freewheeling spending to an "inferno" Tuesday, warning it could engulf the nation if policymakers don't tame the budget."I will lead us out of this debt and spending inferno," Mr. Romney said. "We will stop borrowing unfathomable sums of money we can't even imagine from foreign countries we're never even going to visit." LINK

The NY Times' Michael Barbaro and Michael D. Shear: " Iowa, Again, Serves as Proving Ground for Romney." As he campaigned in Iowa on Tuesday, Mitt Romney used a "prairie fire" metaphor to describe the nation's debt and its impact on the sagging economic fortunes of many Americans. But that fire burns less intensely across Iowa, a swing state with one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country. LINK

The Washington Posts' Karen Tumulty:" "George W. Bush endorses Mitt Romney" As presidential endorsements go, this one could hardly have been more low-key. ABC News caught up with former president George W. Bush in an elevator in downtown Washington on Tuesday and asked the question that elicited the sound bite. "I'm for Mitt Romney," Bush said, just as the doors slid shut. The 43rd president of the United States was on his way to give a speech on human freedom, in which he made no mention of politics, save one sidelong reference: "I actually found my freedom by leaving Washington." LINK